Latest New from China - 07/18/2000

[Qingtao City, Shandong Province] The Living Cell --- The Brutal Persecutions against Practitioners in Hongdao Town

I was detained for 15 days for appealing for Falun Gong. On the second day of my detention, six to seven practitioners from Hongdao Town were sent in. They told me the persecutions they had suffered.

The practitioners were heavily fined by the authority for appealing for Falun Gong, from 5,000 Yuan to 30,000 Yuan. They would not be released until they paid the illegal fine. If one could not pay the money, the officials would rob one's home. During the Chinese New Year, about 20 practitioners were locked in a room in a mountain. Their family members were forced by the officials to kneel before them to ask them to write the so-called pledge.

In Hongdao Town, if someone is a practitioner of Falun Gong, his or her family members would be also in trouble. The children of practitioners are not allowed to go to school. The spouses of practitioners are not allowed to work. Under such harsh conditions, practitioners are still determined about their beliefs. Some of them went to Beijing again in this May to defend Falun Dafa. They unfurled the banners on Tiananmen Square. The banners read "Falun Dafa is Righteous", "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance", etc.

After they were escorted back by the local officials, these practitioners were detained on the second floor of an old building located at the Licang District. There were about 30 of them detained there, including a small baby of two months old, and a senior citizen in the seventies. The address is: North of Xida Village of Licang District, and East of Qingdao Meihouwang Cold Food Ltd. The title on the door of the building reads "Qingdao Xinghuo Model Ltd." The building used to be a normal school. The practitioners have been detained there since May 26.

They do not have any personal freedom, and their human rights have been seriously violated. In the beginning, they were detained in a big room, and they were not allowed to talk or do the exercises. They were required to sit there for the whole day. If anyone's mouth moved a bit, his or her mouth would be sealed. Some practitioners got on a hunger strike, but they were force-fed. After being detained for some days there, practitioners were transferred to detention centers one after another.

Because the detained practitioners were very determined about their beliefs in Falun Dafa, the guards got very angry. Every night, after they got drunk, they would drag practitioners to a room to torture them madly. Once they used a big wood stick to beat a practitioner, and the whole body of the practitioner under the waist was purple and black. The guards even tortured the old practitioner in the seventies, and left a lot of wounds on the practitioner. Two female practitioners were sent to a mental hospital, and were given forced injections with very detrimental effects on the neural system.

The guards claimed: "This is the living hell. Nobody would care if we beat you to death." They do not allow practitioners to have any contact with outside. Even the family members of practitioners were not allowed to see them.

In Qingdao City, the police officers responsible for dealing with Falun Gong often share their methods of persecuting practitioners.

[Guilin City, Guangxi Province] Pregnant practitioner being forced to have abortion for refusing to write pledge to recant

Five practitioners of Guilin City, Lin Jiangjin, Wei Yuemei, Li Xiaoying, Li Xiuliang, and Ou Yang, were arrested for practicing Falun Gong exercises together on July 13. Because all of them refused to sign the repentance and pledge, they are detained in the second detention center of Guilin. To defend their right to practice their beliefs, they have been on hunger strike until now. Later, because Ou Yang was pregnant, she was allowed to go home under the condition that she paid 10,000 Yuan. The police are forcing her to have an abortion under the excuse that she does not have the "permit to give birth". They threatened her that if she still refused to sign the pledge, she might be forced to have an abortion.

As July 22 approaches, the police are getting very nervous. They are pressuring practitioners, telling them not to go to Beijing to appeal, not to practice the exercises together in public areas, and not to contact with each other. On July 11, when practitioner Yao Wusheng was copying the book of Falun Dafa, the police entered his home and arrested him and later seized away his book, although he tried hard to protect the book. To demand the book back, he has been on hunger strike for six days.

[Jilin]

Dang Xiangqun, a practitioner of Longshan District of Liaoyuan City, was arrested a couple of days ago. Mr. Dang went to Beijing to defend Falun Gong last year, and later the local newspaper reported falsely that he had been transformed. In fact, Mr. Dang has been practicing Falun Dafa and defending his belief. The reason for his arrest this time was that he gave materials about the truth of Falun Gong to other practitioners and common people. Before him, many practitioners have been arrested for various excuses.